CITY FOCUS: How to sell the American way

By RUPERT STEINER FOR THE DAILY MAIL
Updated: 19:25 EST, 20 April 2010

Metal shutters obscure the windows of the heavily fortified glass and metal warehouse. Visitors are subjected to random searches and the perimeter is protected by black-clad guards.

But this isn't an Army facility and the staff are not special forces - they are trainee shop workers for Best Buy, an American retail giant about to break into the UK market.

In a joint venture with Charles Dunstone's Carphone Warehouse, Best Buy is taking on Britain's home-grown electrical chains and will open its first European store in Thurrock, Essex, next week.

Pointing the way: Our intrepid reporter being taught the art of retail seduction

With the stakes high, the retailer is keeping details of its store fit-out closely under wraps. What it has so far revealed is an ambitious strategy to roll out 100 out-of-town warehouses over four years.

This will put it on a collision course with market leader DSG, owner of Currys and PC World.

It will be the biggest retail showdown since American supermarket giant Wal-Mart bought Asda in June 1999 and took on Tesco in its own backyard.

Six miles east of Southampton is Best Buy's training operation. I have been allowed to join the programme for the day.

The 50,000sq ft rectangular shed is known as the Blue Shirt Academy to the company and its new recruits. It will morph into Best Buy's second UK store in June.

Only workers who successfully graduate the rigorous course earn the right to wear a coveted blue shirt that sets them apart from others on the shop floor.

Best Buy takes its training seriously. Store workers spend nine weeks here in sessions that border on the evangelical. They are taught that outlets have their own personality and there is no 'us and them' when it comes to customers, just 'one big us'. 
But before the real fun starts, we are given a potted history of the firm. A video jumps back to 1966 and Saint Paul, Minnesota, where the firm started life as a single hi-fi store.

Forty-four years later, and now a fixture on the New York Stock Exchange, it has grown into a 1,150-store multi-national in countries as diverse as China and Turkey.

'We're big but don't feel big and certainly don't want to act big,' says the video. 'It's been a long road and we need smart people like you - we can't do it alone.' The corporate spiel explains: 'The best things we create are the things we create together. People in our stores work together as one family like brothers and sisters.'

At this point it is hard to keep a straight face as my natural British cynicism takes over. And then a powerpoint slide flashes up a list of key values. Top of the pile is the need to 'unleash the power of our people' closely followed by 'having fun while being the best'.

To illustrate this point the video shows us a group of staff throwing custard pies at each other.

'What really makes us unique,' adds trainer Mike Boe, 'is our people - it's the secret sauce.'

You get the idea, and you also wonder whether this sort of cheerleading Americanism will play well with Brits. Next we're ushered into the cavernous shop to practise roleplay as customer and server, but not before a bout of group chants and synchronised physical routines.

Staff are encouraged to bond together, participating in random rituals, while each store is encouraged to develop its own song.

One in Florida has created its own rap while Southampton's melody is borrowed from the terrace chant of the Southampton FC - the Saints - though with the expletives deleted.

Twenty of us stand in a semi-circle and the bonding kicks off with the Best Buy wiggle - probably best left to the imagination.

This is then followed by a series of fast-paced hand and leg slaps climaxing with a group star jump.

The whole process requires a considerable degree of co-ordination and ends with an American style holler along the lines of 'give me a B, give me an E' ......and so on until we spell out 'Best Buy'.

It's probably not an innovation the partners at John Lewis will be in a rush to copy. But the chain will certainly bring an American flavour to Britain's retail scene.

The day ends in the classroom, where we learn about techno-stress brought on by complicated gadgetry, and a concept I'm vaguely aware of called customer engagement.

I'm also told about the Trust Triangle, which is an easy way for workers to learn about customer service. Trust sits in the middle of the triangle surrounded by attitude, product knowledge and relationship skills on each side. It feels like a concept straight out of management school.

Only time will tell whether this attitude will work on this side of the Atlantic. But given the often surly performance of staff at the likes of PC World, Comet and Currys, I suspect Best Buy is about to give its rivals a taste of techno-stress.